Mary Lovelace O'Neal
Forbidden Fruit
1984-1994
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Mary Lovelace O'Neal
Forbidden Fruit
1984-1994
Physical Qualities
Mixed media on canvas, 81 × 138 in. (205.7 × 350.5 cm.)
Credit Line
Purchase with exchange funds from the Pearlstone Family Fund and partial gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
Object Number
2020.18
Forbidden Fruit envelops us in pattern and movement, as we face a figure seated before a still life of fruit. Informed by the artist’s travels through Morocco, the painting blazes with vivid color and confidently loose handling of paint. Her imagery, structure, and color recall modern art in turn-of-the-century Paris and “the boys,” as she calls artists Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse. O’Neal reclaims the legacy of “the boys,” opening up space to situate her abstraction within these renowned styles.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 2020; Mnuchin Gallery; the artist
Christopher Bedford, Asma Naeem, and Katy Siegel, The Baltimore Museum of Art, "Now is the Time: Recent Acquisitions to the Contemporary Collection," May 2, 2021 - July 18, 2021
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